


children of the worse god

by ThirstyForRed



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gwent (The Witcher), M/M, loads of very obscure characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:01:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28218135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirstyForRed/pseuds/ThirstyForRed
Summary: yes, this is one of those dreaded collections of miniatures from tumblr, but I swear that I will not add more tags, and also that even tho i posted those scraps on my blog i still plan to do something with them and I'm just archiving them here
Relationships: Alvin | Jacques de Aldersberg/Hubert Rejk, Nathaniel Pastodi/Roderick de Wett
Comments: 6
Kudos: 2





	1. Rastodi but bad

“ _Aen iarean nyald aep kroofeir…_ ” murmured Roderick and returned yet another psalm book back at its place on the bookshelf.

Going here, jumping over the fence and sneaking inside through the left open window, he hoped to be proven right. That there’s nothing to worry about. But now, standing in the middle of Nathaniel Pastodi’s study he didn’t feel so sure anymore. There was nothing on bookshelves, desks, or even in personal correspondence that would raise any red flags. Anything that would point at the reverend as one the culprits.

But maybe there doesn’t need to be anything written, any journal describing the excitement the only killer could feel. So Roderick looked into the bedroom as well, every basket, chest, and dark corner, looking for blooded clothes or murder weapons. Something, anything that would make sense.

But there was of course nothing - Nathaniel wasn’t the killer, only suspect. And a feeling of uneasiness Roderick felt in his house was… Just that, a feeling. One that hadn’t much to do with thirteen copies of Legend of Saint Gregory filling space on different shelves all around the house, or the torturer’s outfit hidden in a chest under the bed. Nathaniel was very religious, and it wasn’t a secret that in the past his work for the Eternal Church looked a bit different.

“What are you doing here?”

Roderick stumbled and hit the side of the old sturdy desk with his hip upon hearing the voice from behind. He looked to the softly closing doors, and there he was, reverend Nathaniel Pastodi himself. Tall, bald, and with pupils of his eyes blown so wide it was almost impossible to see the blue on them.

“Looking for something.”

Roderick put on the desk yet another psalm book he found, while his right hand, almost unconsciously, rested near the handle of his sword.

“Did you find it?”

“No,” he answered, watching Nathaniel slowly approaching. “Hopefully, because there was nothing to find.”

Pastodi hummed and started taking many rings from his fingers, putting them one by one on the silver tray on the other edge of the desk.

“Are you often hoping to be mistaken, count de Wett?”

“No,” and after a second, as if after consideration, he added “Reverend.”

“No.” Pastodi echoed and placed the last ring on the tray. “What then prompted you to look here in the first place?”

“Suspicion.”

“What kind of suspicion?”

“Is this my confession, Reverend?”

Pastodi looked up at him, and once again Roderick was hit with how blown wide and just plain crazy his eyes were. Roderick swallowed audibly, but the other man just smiled widely.

“Aren’t you ordained yourself, Roderick? I would imagine you would prefer to choose your penance for yourself.”


	2. Alvin but he drank 'spiced' coffee

Hubert was in one of those alleys in the Bits that one wouldn’t want to wander to, but somehow you will still find at least three hooded figures lingering there and desperately avoiding each other’s eye contact. But right now, at 4 am, there were only two guards from the Temple, one Witch Hunter who acted as their superior officer, even though that wasn’t at all how the hierarchy would look like in Novigrad before Menge took over, and some human remains. There was supposed to be the corpse of the last victim of the killer whom gossipers all around the city started to call the Concerned Citizen, but according to the old lady who found it “something big and shaggy took the poor fucker away”.

Unfortunately, the thief left behind the deceased’s left leg and the note with another sermon by the Concerned Citizen. Otherwise, the whole case could be given right into the hands of some capable Flaming Rose knight who would hunt the monster. Instead, now they would have to find some proof that whoever has the body now wasn’t the killer. Maybe they could say it was a werewolf or really desperate medicine students in a big coat…

“… Yes, and then go find sir Roderick and make sure he looks over your draft before you send it…”

“ Sir, I can write it by myself… ”

At the mouth of the alleyway appeared two knights - the Grand Master and one of his adjutants. The one that looked like it could sell you your own pants - Hubert never cared enough to remember their names.

“I know you can, but Roderick grown-up Nilfgardian, he knows how to tell people that they can go fuck themselves and be polite about it. Besides, I still expect you to draft it yourself. Now, go back on the Isle.”

“Yes, sir.” The youth nodded at Jacques and Hubert standing a few feet away from them, and stepped back to the main street.

“What, they can’t even write these days?” Hubert smiled with all teeth.

“They can.” Jacques just rolled his eyes and stepped a bit closer eyeing the mess in the middle of the alley. He had simple gambeson with red flaming rose on, instead of full plate armor. “I’m just trying to teach them to decline moronic offers without apologizing for it or getting punched in the face.”

“That was the polite one?”

“No, Ulrich would bite your ear off.” Jacques chuckled and motioning with the steaming cup to the youth disappearing behind the corner. “Siegfried is the polite one. The one that was so skittish in the morgue.”

Hubert nodded like this time he was going to remember their names. Maybe one day he would, Jacques seemed to be not only training them to be his second in command but was actually fond of them. While the man himself was annoying, in Hubert’s experience, things and people he deemed worthy of his attention rarely turned out to be completely useless. Maybe, remembering the names of his adjutants would be somewhat beneficial in the long run…

“And what are you drinking?” Hubert motioned at the cup. It smelled deliciously on this cold morning.

“Coffee. Blend from the Night City.” he raised the cup to his lips and took a small sip. For a second there was a blissful expression on his face, promptly replaced by one of disgust mixed with a slight surprise, which after a second turned into something akin to appreciation. “But I don’t think I can let you try this one. You could start seeing colors.”

“Isn’t that how the sense of sight works?”

“Yeah, but I mean like colors outside of the spectrum the human eye sees. Or you know, you…”

“Is this one of your special blends?..”

“Nooooo, it’s totally normal one…” One of Jacques’s eyelids twitched.

“Alvin.”

“It’s normal. I might have just mistaken something else for sugar. I think…”

Hubert grabbed him by the chin, moving the head around so at least some of the light of the torches held by guards nearby would hit his face. And yes, indeed his pupils were already blown out.

“Since when do you keep fisstech in the barracks, you moron?” Hubert whispered so no one other in the alley would hear them. He dropped his hand and tried to intercept the cup before Jacques would drink more of it and surely get a cardiac arrest.

“I don’t.” Jacques crossed his arms over the chest - still holding the damned cup. “After we separated I figured they would find the body before midnight, so I told Ulrich that I have important business matters to discuss with the Professor and Javed.”

“You spend the night at the Salamandra hideout?" 

"I’m literally their boss. I can sleep wherever I want. And when I wake up I can drink my coffee.” And he pouted, he actually pouted. “There was a big jar near the fire they are cooking on, so I just assumed it was sugar…”

“Aren’t you the biggest drug lord in the Northern Realms?” Hubert asked exasperated, still trying to pear the other man’s fingers from the cup.

“Yeah, I am.” Jacques chuckled softly.

“And you can’t spot the difference between sugar and fisstech?”

“Not before my first coffee, baby.” He smiled and took one more gulp of ‘spiced’ coffee.


	3. The first gen of witchers but they have to deal with kids

With the plan of action talked over at least ten times and ready, Arnaghad walked out of the impromptu infirmary, Gezras and Ivar right behind him. Or at least tried to. Second, he opened door to the corridor he found at least a dozen and a half children waiting for them. All adept witchers were blinking rapidly due to their freshly mutated eyes, making them look like some kind of hive mind monster from a scary story.

Gezras squeezed his head just under the bear witcher’s elbow and smiled at the children.

“Hey, kitty-boys!” he said with saccharine sweetened voice. “Can we help you with something?”

One of the boys at the front of the small crowd, stepped forward, almost stepping on Arnaghad’s boots in the process. And with an aura of a well-experienced banister, he addressed the witchers.

“We require to see adept Brecht’s familiar.” He raised his hands with open palms, ready to be handed something. “Please, give us Sir Raphael Hides-a-lot the 3rd.”

“What?”

“Brecht’s pet turtle,” chimed in another kid, one with a smile that only a man believing in his ability to lawyer himself out of the hell while speaking only in Hen Llinge, could wear.

“Why do you need his pet turtle?” asked Arnaghad. But judging by the look the first kid gave him it was clearly a stupid question.

“Because it’s exceptionally cute, master Arnachad.”

“And there’s no viper adepts with you here? You lot won’t kill and eat Brecht’s pet?” He searched the faces of gathered children, trying to see if any of them look like a potential viper or turtle eater, but with no medallions and all of them still rapidly blinking it was hard to tell.

“Oh, for fuck sakes!” Ivar cursed from behind. “How many times I have to explain that it was a joke? I don’t make my kids kill their fucking pets!”

“Fine, fine…” Arnaghad turned back towards the infirmary as far as the crowd of witchers and to-be-witcher let him do it. “ERLAND!”

“What?!”

“Give me his turtle!”

“I’m not touching that thing again.”

“I didn’t ask! Give me that damn turtle!”

The griffin witcher cursed, but went to the adjacent room, tried to not make too much noise while opening and closing the ancient door, and returned with the turtle in hand.

“He bit me again,” whined the witcher while passing the pet to Arnaghad.

“Brecht or Sir Raphael?”

“He did not name this monster "Sir Raphael”…“

Arnaghad tried his best to not laugh at Erland’s misfortune, and instead handed the turtle to the kid in front.

"Ok, catboys. I’m giving you my student’s pet and I hope that you will take good care of him. That you will feed him and make sure he’s happy and safe. Do you understand?”

“Yes, master Arnachad,” answered the choir of small mutants.


	4. The first gen of witchers but one of their kids is sick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it takes place hour or so before the things from chapter 3 :p

Erland signed and repeated the question as if this time he would hear a different answer.

“I’m gonna ask once again: why did you think it’s a good idea to drink an unmarked potion belonging to another witcher?”

Brecht, from his pile of furs and blankets where they made his lie, for now, to keep an eye on him, looked like some old and bored to death monarch. The six-year-old shrugged or at least tried to, all those layers must have weighed a ton and a half.

“I don’t know, Erland… Can I sleep now?”

“No!” Shouted from the other side of the workshop witcher with the manticore as his medallion. “Erland keep him awake!”

Arnaghad, who stood by the offside table, looking thru all glass bottles and containers, double-checking each label and amount of contents, huffed at that. “The kid is poisoned, not brain-damaged. Maybe if we let him rest the fever will decrease.”

“If what he drank was just a regular potion then believe me I would let him even play outside,” said Manticore hovering over another impressive collection of alchemical concoctions. “But if it was superior brew? Or some sort of mutation decoct?” he lowered his voice to a panicked whisper. “I have no idea what that might do to him.”

Erland still squatting next to Brecht reached to check the kid’s temperature. Immediately got beaten by the pet turtle Brecht was hugging and cursed horribly.

“Ha!” Ivar peeked out from under the table where the floor was littered with glass. Smiling despite everything. “And they say that I’m foul-mouthed!”

Erland spared viper witcher only one deadly glare, which wasn’t so effective since he was sucking on the injured finger. Brecht moved a bit and raised in one hand the snapping turtle above the covers.

“I don’t think he likes you, Erland.”

Turtle hissed viciously at the witcher.

“I still think he would make amazing turtle soup.”

“Eww! Erland!” Turtle disappeared back under the furs and blankets, and the griffin witcher chuckled quietly.

“Do you remember at least what the bottle looked like? Was it clear glass or maybe green? Brown?”

But Brecht shook his head and after a minute started to wiggling a lot under covers. With one released hand, this time free of his pet, beckoned the witcher closer.

“Erland,” whispered the kid. Again, with incredible gravitas of the king dying from old age after leaving his kingdom to sons and just on his deathbed revealing the existence of legible older bastard.

“I need to pee.”

Erland signed and looked around. They had plenty of bottles laying around, but that just sounded like an accident waiting to happen.

“Just go to the balcony, I guess. Try to not hit the wall please.”

Brecht nodded seriously, shrugged off a collection of bear furs, and shuffled to the open balcony doors. It wasn’t even half a minute later that all witchers in the room heard him shouting DAD. Erland, straight-up confused and town off by this scream, lost his balance and from squad landed on his ass.

Arnaghad on the other hand actually reacted, he ran toward the balcony, almost shoulder checking Gezras on his way.

“I’m not your dad!” he shouted looking behind, clearly saying it rather on the benefit of Erland and other witchers, than his own.

Especially since seconds later they all heard Arnaghad’s billowing voice addressing Brecht.

“Hey, what’s up son?”

Gezras turned to Erland and across the room wiggled his brows at the griffin witcher. Erland showed the cat his bitten by turtle finger - just so it happened, it was the middle one.

“I’m pissing green.” they all heard the six-year-old’s voice from the balcony.

“Guys!” Arnaghad’s alarmed face appeared in the doorway. “He’s pissing green.”

Everyone turned to the manticore witcher, who with hands grabbing at his hair was now walking in circles and repeating “green body fluids” like so sort of mantra.

“Ok, ok, ok… I think I know!” he exclaimed, at first with excitement that swiftly turned into even deeper panic. “It has to be arachnas mutagens.”

“Aren’t that sort of mutagens a think only witchers after Trial of Grass can take?” asked Gezras.

“Brecht wasn’t yet mutated.” Said Arnaghad, now standing in the doorway with the kid, covering his ears with big hands.

“It been hours, how is he even alive?” added Ivar, finally getting up from the floor.

Everyone looked again at the manticore witcher, hoping that he will have some answers. But the man only started sweating more.

“I have no idea.”


End file.
